Jews celebrate Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) today

Rosh Hashanah: a Jewish feast
Food plays a highly symbolic part in the celebrations for the Jewish New Year

Rosh Hashanah is the "head of the year," is a Jewish holiday commonly referred to as the "Jewish New Year." It is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar as ordained in the Torah, in Leviticus 23:24.

Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), or Asseret Yemei Teshuva (The Ten Days of Repentance) which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar. (one of four "new year" observances that define various legal "years" for different purposes)

It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years and sabbatical (shmita) and jubilee (yovel) years. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man whereas five days earlier, on 25 of Elul, marks the first day of creation.

The Mishnah, the core text of Judaism's oral Torah, contains the first known reference to Rosh Hashana as the "day of judgment." In the Talmud tractate on Rosh Hashanah it states that three books of account are opened on Rosh Hashanah , wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded.

The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed "to live." The middle class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous; the wicked are "blotted out of the book of the living."

Rosh Hashanah is observed as a day of rest (Leviticus 23:24) and the activities prohibited on Shabbat are also prohibited on Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made from a ram's horn, intended to awaken the listener from his or her "slumber" and alert them to the coming judgment. There are a number of additions to the regular Jewish service, most notably an extended repetition of the Amidah prayer for both Shacharit and Mussaf.

The traditional Hebrew greeting on Rosh Hashanah is "shana tova", (pronounced [ʃaˈna toˈva]) for "a good year," or "shana tova umetukah" for "a good and sweet year." Because Jews are being judged by God for the coming year, a longer greeting translates as "may you be written and sealed for a good year." (ketiva ve-chatima tovah).

During the afternoon of the first day the practice of tashlikh is observed, in which prayers are recited near natural flowing water, and one's sins are symbolically cast into the water. Many also have the custom to throw bread or pebbles into the water, to symbolize the "casting off" of sins.